Our Callings Don’t Have to Be Our Careers

Last week in the Playing Big leadership course, we explored the topic of callings. Tara Mohr defines a calling as an assignment we receive, a longing, to contribute more light and love into the world. It can be an act of service, a support group, a business idea, or a piece of art. Here’s what has deeply resonated with me about her perspective of callings: we can have multiple callings in a lifetime, and like any life form, they have a beginning and an end.

This means there does not have to be one big calling, or one big life purpose or career. Sometimes people experience that, and sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t make it wrong that our callings shift and change over time, and that we have more than one.

I’ve been sitting with this one. For much of my life, I’ve internalized the messages of Find Your Passion and Do What You Love. I thought that they were all the same thing — calling, purpose, passion, and career. It turns out, sometimes they overlap, but they do not have to be the same thing.

Popular culture has romanticized the idea of finding your passion, particularly with the rise of the internet and creative entrepreneur — the person who is able to quit their day job and create their dream job living the 4 hour-work-week lifestyle (Though there is a wave of counter-arguments such as here and here). For me, it’s been both an aspirational and destructive message at the same time. I spent all of my twenties chasing this fantasy for my life and career. I bought into the idea that there is “The One” — my soulmate career path and purpose, and anything less than that is settling for a mediocre life.

And while it’s wonderful for people who are able to make a living doing work they love and enjoy, such as many artists and writers and business leaders, it’s not the only story that exists. Having a 9–5 job is not always a mind-numbing fate, but rather, it can be a source of learning and steady income. In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes that she kept her day job up until her fourth published book, Eat, Pray, Love.

“I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life,” Gilbert writes.

I work in education and get to mentor amazing college students, and I truly enjoy the work I do. It’s that very job that also allows me time and space to explore creative writing and to have a lifestyle where I can be present with my husband and toddler son. It’s not the glamorous success story that I hear about on business podcasts or read about on Forbes 30 under 30 lists, but it’s my version of a good life, a happy and fulfilled one.

While I’m not closing myself off to the idea that I could ever merge my career and calling someday, I’m enjoying the space I’m in now — where my creative calling gets to exist on its own terms without the pressure to be something its not.

Day 19/100 of #paulinewritesfor100days